Oman reached out to Iran in 2009; Sultan Qaboos visited Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran within weeks of Iran’s June 12 election. To a greater extent than any of the five other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Oman refrained from openly challenging or even criticizing Iran over that country’s nuclear-development program or controversial foreign policies. Instead, Oman continued its long-standing approach of seeking to engage Tehran diplomatically, and the two countries entered into several memorandums of understanding. The more important ones pertained to increased bilateral cooperation in energy affairs, and Oman agreed for the first time to purchase Iranian gas exports.

Oman weathered the global economic slowdown better than most of its neighbours and enjoyed ongoing fiscal surpluses. The reasons were several: the cushion provided by the earlier robust level of revenues accrued from exceptionally high oil prices, increased oil production to about 805,000 bbl per day, sustained income from exports of natural gas, and conservative local practices of lending and investment. A new oil field was discovered off the Musandam Peninsula in an area straddling Oman’s maritime border with Iran. Of particular importance was the continued vibrancy of spending by foreign tourists, especially other Gulf nationals, who were visiting the sultanate in far greater numbers than before because, for economic reasons, they were less willing than in earlier years to vacation farther afield. The country’s booming tourism industry was developing a variety of new tourist destinations. High-speed ferryboat service was inaugurated to transport vehicles and passengers to the remote but scenic Musandam Peninsula and to hitherto little-explored coastal sites and islands in the southeast.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.